


Of Men And Angels

by RedOrchid



Series: Episode remixes, missing scenes and fix-its [2]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode: s01e06 Of Men And Angels, Getting to Know Each Other, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Missing Scene, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-08
Updated: 2016-07-08
Packaged: 2018-07-22 08:00:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7426657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedOrchid/pseuds/RedOrchid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The missing scene between Magnus asking Alec to stay for one more drink and Alec getting back to the Institute the following morning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Men And Angels

**Author's Note:**

> Missing scene! Because I _love_ missing scenes. This fic in was sparked by this lovely tumblr post:
> 
>  _I really need to know what happened the night that alec stayed over at magnus’ in ep 6 because the next time he talks to magnus he just starts venting to him about his life and parents… So like why is he immediately that comfortable talking to him? It’s like he knows that magnus is gonna listen to him… Is there a part one of this conversation where alec explains his family life to magnus? did they stay up all night talking?? Is that why alec says that magnus is “quite magical” because he liked the way he can just talk to him.. I really need to know what happened? I feel like it was an important part of their relationship and I am desperate for answers!!_  
>  \- princemagnusbane ([link](http://princemagnusbane.tumblr.com/post/146908459381/i-really-need-to-know-what-happened-the-night-that))
> 
> Lots of love as usual to my amazing beta letswastetimehere. *throws kisses*

_Stay for just one more drink, and then decide_ has turned into three more drinks and sitting together on Magnus’ (finally completely blood-free) couch, talking about nothing in particular.

They started off on opposite sides, but in the past half hour or so, Magnus has noticed that Alec is becoming gradually more animated, leaning forward to emphasise a point when he talks, and then… not quite pulling all the way back again. 

Magnus is almost giddy with excitement. Now, if only he could get Alec to actually flirt _back_ , that’d be even better. It’s clear that Alec is enjoying himself, and that he likes being in Magnus’ company. Magnus wonders what else is underneath the surface—whether Alec feels the enticing pull between them too, or if he simply enjoys having found someone new to talk to that isn’t part of his family.

Either scenario has its own potential, but Magnus has always been curious, and he wants to _know_. The idea hits him out of nowhere, but as he turns it over in his mind, he realises that it’s kind of brilliant. “Let’s play a game.”

Alec looks back at him skeptically. “What kind of game?”

“Oh, nothing scandalous or untoward,” Magnus replies with a wink. “Just a little something to get to know each other better.”

“Why?” Alec asks, and it’s the same honest bewilderment as earlier, when Magnus said he’d wanted to see him again—like Alec really doesn’t get why someone would be interested in _him_.

“Because I believe there’s more to both of us than what we let other people see,” Magnus settles on, after thinking about his answer for a while. “Now, the game goes like this: we take turns making statements about things we believe to be true about each other, either personally or for warlocks and shadowhunters in general, and the other one will say whether the statement is true or false.”

“Alright,” Alec says. “Seems simple enough. How will I know you’re not lying, though?”

“How will I know _you’re_ not?” Magnus counters.

Alec grins. “Guess you won’t. Izzy always says I’m a terrible liar, though. Something about me having a permanent stick up my ass.”

“Well, there are definitely more fun things you can have up there,” Magnus quips automatically, and then presses his lips together to hide a smile as Alec blushes. “Shall I go first, then?”

Alec nods and takes a deep gulp of his drink. Magnus bites down on another smile; gods above, but he is _adorable_. Magnus wants to gobble him up.

“Let’s start with something simple,” he says. “How about… shadowhunters are very serious about keeping in shape; you have mandatory physical training at least two hours a day.”

“True,” Alec replies. “I can’t speak for the other institutes, of course, but in New York, the basic training regimen for all active members is three hours per day.”

“Well, it’s certainly having the desired results,” Magnus says, enjoying the way Alec’s blush seems to deepen when Magnus runs his eyes blatantly over his chest and arms. “Keeping the demon population of New York in line, of course.”

“Of course,” Alec echoes, looking very much like he’s keeping himself from rolling his eyes. “Okay, my turn. You’re less than four hundred years old.” 

“Completely false!” Magnus exclaims. “I’m approaching a thousand, thank you very much.”

“ _Really?_ ”

“Didn’t we already agree there would be no lying?” Magnus says. “What could possibly have you doubting me?”

“Well, for one thing, I don’t think you _actually_ slept with Michelangelo,” Alec replies, raising an eyebrow at Magnus in clear challenge.

Magnus smirks back at him. “So you were paying attention! And here I was afraid I was being too subtle.”

Alec snorts into his drink. “Um. _No._ Subtle is… not a word I’d use to describe you.”

“Well on _that_ note, I have to up the ante, don’t I? Let’s see… oh, yes, here’s one: when shadowhunters fall in love, it’s for life.”

Alec presses his lips together and looks away, and for a moment, Magnus is worried that he’s pushed him too far too quickly.

“I actually don’t know for sure,” Alec says at last. “I mean, it’s what people say, but I don’t… I, um. I kind of hope they’re wrong. I mean…” He trails off, shaking his head. Magnus waits, wondering if Alec is going to open up any further.

In the end, Alec just sighs and looks back up at Magnus, the small smile he puts on his lips not quite reaching his eyes.

“So, my turn, right?” he says, taking another sip of his drink as he clearly thinks about a question. “Oh, here’s one I’ve actually been wondering about: warlocks are naturally sterile.”

Magnus feels the statement like a punch to the gut. Not because he’s never heard it before—he has, _many_ times—but because he didn’t expect it from this man, not now, and certainly not in such a casual tone of voice—like Alec is making an offhand comment about the weather.

“Well, you certainly don’t waste any time getting really up close and personal, do you?” he throws back, not caring that it comes out sounding far more biting than he intended. 

Alec’s eyes widen, and he suddenly looks unsure. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“Didn’t what?” Magnus interrupts him. “Didn’t mean to refer to us as though we’re some kind of exotic animal? Oh, look at the warlocks. Magical ability, _very_ good for quick travelling and setting up wards. You can’t breed them, unfortunately—what a shame!”

In his defense, Alec looks properly distressed by the end of Magnus’ outburst. He opens his mouth and then quickly closes it again, like he doesn’t know what to say. 

“Magnus—” he tries. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean it like that—I didn’t think; I _don’t_ think of you like that, I promise, it’s just—”

“Let me guess, it’s just how everyone talks?” Magnus cuts him off, anger still churning in his gut as he refills his glass with a snap of his fingers. “To answer your question, no, we can’t have children. My turn: a _proper_ Shadowhunter is always straight.”

It’s Alec’s turn to look like he’s just been slapped. Instead of feeling vindicated, however, Magnus just feels ten times worse. 

“You know, I guess you could say I deserved that after what I just said to you,” Alec replies. “But if we’re just going to take turns trying to hit beneath the belt, then I’m not interested in playing.”

They stare at each other for a long time, before Magnus sighs and looks away. “You’re right, that was way out of line. I’m sorry too. I don’t assume we can start over?”

He’s half-expecting (more than half, to be honest) Alec to get up and leave. Alec has no reason to stay, after all, and whatever tipped the scale and brought him over to Magnus’ in the first place is unlikely to stand up against twenty plus years of following orders. Especially if they keep going downhill like this.

“All right,” Alec says, much to Magnus’ surprise. He empties his glass and sets it down on the table. And then looks up, meeting Magnus’ eyes. “You prefer gold over silver. For your clothes, I mean.”

“That very much depends on my mood, actually,” Magnus replies carefully, as he mixes and pours Alec another drink. “But I guess, in general, yes. I do tend towards a warmer colour palette. Now, you, on the other hand, clearly have an affinity for black. And more black. With a little extra black, maybe?”

The corners of Alec’s lips twist into a small smile. “You sound like Izzy,” he says. “But yeah. I do like black. It’s practical, professional, and I can do all my laundry in one load.”

“Ah, yes. _Practical_ —the holy grail of fashion.”

“Shut up, it gets the work done. Let me see… you changed a lot of the furniture when you moved the lair, but for some reason, you kept the book cases exactly the same, so I’m going to say that you like to read?”

“I do,” Magnus confirms, pleased. “Since you noticed that in the middle the chaos that was everything else that night, I’m going to say that you like reading too.”

“I love it,” Alec says, a genuine smile on his lips now. “Always have. When I was little, my parents would sometimes have to hide my books for a few days, because even when I wasn’t reading them, I’d still be caught up in the stories, and my training scores would suffer.”

“Oh no, not the training scores,” Magnus replies with a smirk. “Anything but that!”

This time, there’s some definite eye-roll happening. “What’s some of your favourite books, then?”

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly choose,” Magnus says. “It all depends on what else is going on in my life—whether I long for something to make me laugh or cry; rage at the unfairness of the world or feel like everything is part of a balance; whether I want the slow burn of love and romance or the quick, hot flames of pure lust that grab you and leave you—well, you get the picture.”

From the way Alec’s cheeks are practically burning, he most certainly does. When he looks back at Magnus, there’s a definite dilation in his pupils. Magnus feels his own heart skip a beat.

“I, uh—there’s this one work that I—I don’t know if you’ve—” Alec says, breaking off and ducking his head before visibly giving himself a mental shake and pulling himself together. “It’s a mundane play. _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_. Izzy hates it because it depicts faeries in a kind of shallow way, I guess? But I always—there’s just something about it that always makes me want to read it, over and over, again.” 

“That one does have a certain flair,” Magnus agrees. “Too many love potions in it for my taste, however. Once you’ve seen the effects of one up close, the whole trope gets decidedly less funny.”

“It all ends happily, though,” Alec argues. “I mean, no one actually gets hurt.”

“Are you sure about that?” Magnus asks. “I don’t know about you, but if the person I was married to bewitched me to fall in love with someone else—to share my heart and body with them against my will—as a means to punish me? I don’t imagine we’d have much of a marriage left, afterwards.”

Alec visibly pales. “I’ve never thought of it like that.”

“No, I don’t imagine you have,” Magnus says. “I don’t blame you for the environment you’ve grown up in, Alexander, and neither should you. None of us get to choose how and where we’re born. You’re not a child any longer, however, and the mindset you’ll have going forward is something you _can_ choose for yourself. Question is, what will it be?”

Something that looks a lot like apprehension flickers in Alec’s eyes. His body language changes so drastically that it’d be funny if it wasn’t for how the air between them suddenly feels colder, a nervous tension replacing the comfortable mood.

“It’s not that easy,” Alec says. “It might be fine for Izzy and Jace to go off and follow their hearts or whatever, but I don’t have that luxury. Someone needs to uphold the system. It’s there to keep us alive; without rules, there’d be chaos, and more people would die.”

“Ah, yes,” Magnus says. “What is that old Clave motto, again? The Law is hard—”

“But it’s the Law,” Alec finishes for him. “Exactly.”

Magnus runs the tip of his finger around the edge of his glass, thinking about where he wants to go from here. In the end, he picks the safer route and switches the conversation back to a lighter subject.

“I knew him, you know? Shakespeare. We spent a beautiful summer together in London.”

“Shut up, you did not,” Alec says quickly, obviously happy to leave the talk of the Clave behind. “What’s next, you’ll try to convince me that he was excellent in bed, too?”

“Oh, no, he was awful,” Magnus replies, keeping his face perfectly straight. “All creativity he had clearly went into his writing. Always ink on his hands as well; it was terrible.”

Alec chokes on his drink and ends up coughing horribly, while laughing at the same time. He has a beautiful laugh; Magnus immediately starts thinking about ways to bring it out again. 

When it finally passes, Alec looks up at Magnus, and the smile on his face drops for something more serious. 

“How do you do that?” he asks, and Magnus watches him take a deep breath. “I mean. You, um. Just—it sounds so easy when you talk about it. Being with… people. With, you know, um—”

“Other men?” Magnus fills in gently. Alec nods. “Practice makes perfect, I guess.”

Alec frowns at that, and Magnus leans back in his chair, stirring his drink with one finger as he contemplates how to continue.

“I’ve lived a long time, Alexander,” he starts. “In a lot of different cultures as well. Prejudices differ, and I have had the luxury of sometimes living in places where I could love another man openly, even a few times when living among mundanes. At the same time, I’ve experienced my fair share of ignorance and hate, and I’ve seen more of it than I would have ever wanted to. The fact that I’m attracted to both men and women makes it both easier and harder. Just because I have the potential to fall in love with either sex doesn’t mean I get to choose how it happens. I meet someone, and there’s a spark of interest. I want to get to know them, and it grows from there, just like for anyone else. The heart wants what it wants.”

“Yeah, well,” Alec says, and Magnus can hear both sadness and longing in his voice. “Sometimes the heart just wants the wrong thing.”

Magnus leans forward and gently puts a hand on Alec’s knee, just keeping it there as a silent show of support until he hears Alec let out a long, even breath.

“Don’t apologise,” he tells Alec. “ _Never_ apologise for who you love, Alec. I know the Clave is backwards and intolerant in their views, but even they will have to get better eventually.”

Alec snorts inelegantly. “That’ll be the day. I wish I could be as positive as you, Magnus, but I’ve lived by the Clave’s rules my whole life. And I don’t even mind, not really. I have my family, my job. I have a life where I get to make a difference and make the world a little safer. Maybe love is just not in the cards for me. I mean, it doesn’t have to be a bad thing.”

“There are as many forms of love as there are moments in time,” Magnus agrees, smiling when Alec’s face lights up a little as he recognises the quote. “Still…”

“Still… what?” Alec asks. There’s a slight tremble in his voice, and a look of something almost hungry beneath the guarded look in his eyes, like a sliver of desperate hope shining through.

“Love is like… a wave,” Magnus says. “It washes over you, erases who you were and leaves you as someone who looks the same, but is still _so_ different. And whether this new you is someone you wanted to be or not doesn’t matter, because it’s done, and it’s just as impossible for you to change back as it is for every single grain of sand on that beach to find the exact position it had before the water rolled in.”

“I—I’m not sure I get what you’re saying?”

“I’m saying that who and what we want end up causing us nothing but pain, sometimes,” Magnus replies. “But that doesn’t stop that deep pull in our souls that tells us that a piece of us is missing without them. It’s ironic really, how we spend our entire existence chasing the thing that’ll destroy us in the end.”

Alec visibly swallows. “So why did you say all those things to me before? If opening up to someone will destroy you, why would you even want to try?”

Magnus tightens his fingers for a second, squeezing Alec’s knee before pulling his hand back.

“Because, my dear Alexander,” he says, “the breaking of waves against the shore is what makes the beach come alive. Without that, it’s just a barren stretch of sand.” He pauses for a moment and studies the mess of conflicting emotions as they play across Alec’s face. “I meant what I said before: you’ve unlocked something in me. I don’t know what it is or what I could become, I just know that I met you and I wanted to see you again.”

Alec swallows. “I don’t know how—I mean with everything, and my parents—the Clave. I just—” He breaks off and lets out a long, shaky breath. “I don’t even know what I want anymore. I mean, I thought I knew. God, for _so long_ , I just wanted for, um—but even that’s changing, and it’s—”

He closes his eyes for a moment. Magnus waits. And watches.

“Can we talk about something else?” Alec says when he looks back up. “In case you hadn’t figured it out, my life got turned upside down recently, and, um, being here, it’s nice. Different. I, um, I like talking to you. You’re… good. Easy to talk to. So maybe we could just… I don’t know, do that some more?” 

Magnus gives him a small smile. “Of course. There’s no pressure here, Alexander. Not now, and not in the future. Just… relax and breathe for a while.”

“Thank you,” Alec replies. “I just—I don’t want you to waste your time.”

“If I just wanted something physical, I could find it at the club,” Magnus says. “I’m more than happy to sit here and have a nice conversation, don’t worry. Now, you say you’ve read _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ , but have you ever read _Much Ado About Nothing_? If not, I should really introduce you to that one. I think I have one of the movie versions, even.”

“I did read it, a couple of years back,” Alec says. “I’ve never seen a play acted out before, though. Is it very different?”

Magnus makes a show out of putting a hand to his heart and gasping in shock. “ _Is it very different?_ That’s it, I’m taking you to the theatre district the next time you have an evening off. For now, though, watching a movie version will have to do. The little box over there is called a DVD-player. Remember that and get one as soon as you’re able.”

“Duly noted,” Alec replies, trying and failing to hide a smile. “So which character is your favourite?”

“Why, Beatrice, of course,” Magnus says loftily, taking the opportunity to slide a little closer to Alec as he summons the remote and starts pressing buttons to get the movie going. “Independent, sassy, likes to bring men to their knees. All fantastic qualities in a woman.”

“You should meet Izzy again. I think you’d like her.”

“I already do,” Magnus replies. “I don’t give away priceless jewellery to just anyone, you know. Besides— _killer_ shoes. I see a lot of shopping trips in our future. Provided we find a reason to stay on friendly terms, that is.”

Alec ducks his head, and Magnus can see a blush spread across his cheeks. “I, um. Hope you will.”

Magnus smiles at him and raises his glass, waits for Alec to look back up and then clinks their two glasses together. “To new possibilities.”

Alec smiles back and moves a little closer.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are love! And feel free to come find me on [tumblr](http://actuallyredorchid.tumblr.com)! I love talking about fic, the show and everything Shadowhunters!


End file.
